


Tempo

by Renne



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Feelings, Fluff, Quote Science Unquote
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2014-06-03
Packaged: 2018-02-03 05:56:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1733576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Renne/pseuds/Renne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Brainstorm isn't just a weapons inventor and Nautica is quite good with feelings, actually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tempo

**Author's Note:**

> For [dataglitch](http://dataglitch.tumblr.com/), as part of a doodles-for-drabbles exchange, who requested Brainstorm & Nautica having a quiet night in Brainstorm's lab. May contain traces of completely made up science.

Nautica knocked quietly on Brainstorm's workshop door. It was late, later than she'd intended – she'd gotten caught up in some repairs to the _Lost Light_ 's back up FTL drive that had been a bit more substantial than expected, and hadn't wanted to leave until she'd painstakingly disassembled and reassembled the command core to ensure that the device was working properly. 

"Who is it?"

"It's me – it's, uh, it's Nautica," she added, even as she realised it was kind of silly; it's not like there were any other bots on the ship with a voice like hers. Still, she was sparked to be polite, and introducing yourself was the thing to do.

"It's open," she heard Brainstorm call.

Juggling engex – her triple filtered favourite, of course, she'd learned exactly how to sweet talk Swerve into giving her the top of the line stuff – and clean glassware, she palmed the door open. 

As always, the familiar scent that wafted out reminded her of her old home on Caminus; the layers of grease and engine oil and spent – and spilled – energon, the faint tang of ozone in the air… it was the comforting smell of a well-used workshop. Brainstorm was perched on a stool by one of the benches, bent over a device she though he may be trying to put back together.

Nautica nudged the door closed after her. "Sorry, I'm late," she said, "the FTL command core wasn't talking to the control room, and—"

"You're late?" Brainstorm blinked at her. "Primus, is that the time?"

She laughed. "Now I don't feel so bad for running this late if you got distracted, too. I meant to comm you, but then there was the thing with the Pyrobots, then Riptide had to show me some terrible gossip about me and you from the latest LLI issue and then Tailgate turned up – I think he wants to learn how to be a mechanic now, he had a lot of questions, but come to think of it, not so many about what I was doing… Anyway, all this was happening while I was trying to work on the ship's drive cores! I don't know why they all think they can just interrupt me while I'm working."

"You're still a novelty," Brainstorm said. Then his head came up, like he'd realised what he'd said. "I don't _mean_ you're a novelty, I just mean you're different and new and—" He scrubbed his hand over his blast mask. "They'll get used to you. You're not a novelty to me," he added. "That's not why I'm – that's definitely not why I hang out with you. Okay?"

"It's okay, I understand," Nautica said and grinned, not feeling slighted by his words. Besides, it was cute to see him fumble for something nice to say. "You ready for a drink?"

"I need to finish this first." He both managed to indicate to the device on the bench and yet managed to obscure it from her view. Very shifty, Nautica thought. He was definitely up to something.

"What is it?" she asked curiously, trying to peer around him. "Do you need a hand?"

He shuffled to his left so she was blocked by his wing. "No, no, no, I'm fine. And it's a secret."

"A secret?"

"Uh-huh. Just… give me a couple more minutes. Sit down, have a drink, take a load off…"

Nautica patted his shoulder and went over to the – well, at some point in its lifespan it probably was a couch, but now it was a series of pieces all carefully arranged in the memory of a seat, so for lack of a better term she called it a couch, snagging an empty storage box and upturning it as a table for the engex and cups. 

"So… is it for me?" she asked, after pouring out a measure of engex and admiring the colour. Brainstorm twisted around on his stool to look at her steadily, his head angled just so as if to say _Really? You're even asking that?_ "It is for me!"

"Who else do I make presents for?" he said and she could tell he was grinning behind his blast mask. 

Nautica thought about it a moment, leaning back on the couch and propping her feet up on the edge of another of the empty storage boxes. "Well, everyone seems to have something from you. Since I've been here there was the 'My Second Blaster' you made for Swerve, and the one for Groove, then there were the crossbow mods for Atomizer – and I could have sworn those were the ones Ultra Magnus specifically requested you not do – oh, and the guns – _plural_ – you've made for Whirl which I am pretty sure would be banned under three… no, four different Weapons Acts—"

"Okay, okay, I get your point," he said hastily. "Those, though, they're not really presents though, they're more… operational requirements."

"Uh-huh," she echoed him skeptically. He huffed and then flapped his hand at her, turning back to the device.

Brainstorm had made her a blaster too, without her even asking; it was her first, like Swerve's, only less… jubilant, which was nice. She knew how to shoot, after all, she just never did much of it. The blaster was the same colour as Chromia, because, Brainstorm had said, he could tell she was missing her best friend and Nautica thought it was perhaps the nicest thing anyone had done for her. She'd started coming around his workshop more after that, which he'd seemed okay with, then one thing had lead to another and, well, here they were. Wherever that was. 

After the blaster, he'd promptly moved on to souping up her wrench with all kinds of multitools and gadgets – unobtrusive ones that were hidden away when not in use, an ingenious use of subspace mechanics, if she did say so herself. He'd almost preened with pleasure when she'd told him that. That her wrench could now also be converted into an energy blade, well, he was a weapons designer, after all. As long as it didn't accidentally turn into a sword while she was using it was all she asked.

"This present isn't a weapon though," Brainstorm said eventually, just when Nautica was starting to suspect he'd completely forgotten she was there. "I can do things other than weapons."

"Of course you can," Nautica said placatingly, with poorly hidden curiosity as she watched him turn on what looked like – from this angle, and from what little she could see – a suspension field, and pick up two halves of a transparent sphere. "Are you sure you don't need a hand?"

"I'm… fine… I just have to… _there_ ," he finished triumphantly. Nautica sat up straight, moving to stand, but he said, "No, no, you stay there, I'll bring it to you. Close your optics, I want to set it up first." 

Indulging him, she offlined her optics. She could sense him moving around, but resisted the urge to look, or reach out with her other senses, even when there was a small bang of something falling and she heard him swear under his breath. 

She didn't look, but it didn't stop her grinning and she felt him nudge her leg. "Stop that," he said and her grin widened. She felt the couch move as he sat beside her. "Okay, you can open your optics."

Obediently, she opened her optics and—

"It's a clock," he announced eagerly before she even had a chance to focus on the device. 

Nautica blinked, throwing a glance at Brainstorm, then looking back at what he'd placed on the storage container in front of her. Her optics widened. "It _is_ ," she said, when what it really was sank in. "Brainstorm, it's not just any clock, it's a Caminus clock, how did you—how—" She stuttered to a halt. How could he possibly have made a Caminus clock? It wasn't something just anyone could make; it took years to learn how to craft one. Galactic civilisations could rise and fall before a chronosmith was considered to be master enough to build one.

"It's not quite a Caminus clock," Brainstorm said, rubbing his hands together nervously, like he expected her to blow up at him at the revelation. "Clearly I'm not a chronosmith and I haven't really got time to study for a hundred thousand years under a master to learn how to build one. It's more… the _idea_ of a Caminus clock."

She could see that now, looking at it closer. He'd used several interlocking temporal zones piggy-backed onto a spatial generator to recreate the ebb and flow of liquid within the time chambers, spinning at the heart of the clock like tiny interlocking galaxies. It was an ingenious example of the combination of horometrical sciences and Brainstorm's own unique mad scientist problem solving. The whole thing, clearly far more fragile than a real Caminus clock, which tended to be so sturdy it could survive a sun going nova, was encased in the clear sphere, hung suspended over what she was amused to see was a scarred, squared off piece of an old bench top which had obviously fallen victim to an explosion. 

"It's… it's beautiful, Brainstorm. I've never seen anything like it before." Her own internal chronometer told her it was accurate to the second of the time on her home planet, and how he'd managed to sync it with the pulse of Caminus's spark she had no idea. 

"So, do you like it?" His tone was anxious bordering on plaintive, and Nautica wondered in what world calling something 'beautiful' might mean she didn't like it, but then she guessed he probably got feedback more along the lines of 'but it should be able to kill _more_ people' (Swerve) and 'having the stopping power of a Phase Sixer is exactly what I need, but how about making people splash?' (Whirl).

"Oh, Brainstorm," she said. "It's perfect. I love it."

"Oh, thank Primus. I wasn't – I mean, I didn't think you'd hate it, but you can never _tell_ sometimes, this is why I make guns, everyone likes guns, there's no pressure with guns—"

"Hey," Nautica said, finally seeing what was going on here. The blaster, the wrench, now this clock... He really was possibly the nicest, sweetest, emotionally flustered bot she'd ever met. She smiled. "It's okay, I like you too."

He stiffened, looking at her with wide optics. It would have been funny, the way he looked like she'd just zapped him, except— "You do?"

Nautica nudged him with her shoulder. "Of course I do."

Brainstorm deflated. "Oh."

"Not like that, not just as friends," she added hastily, because she could see exactly where that was going (and her friends would be so proud of her for being observant about feelings for once). "I _like_ you."

"Oh!" His optics crinkled as he beamed at her behind the mask. "That's – wow, that's great. Because I do – like you, I mean. A lot." He laughed, took her hand, then let it go, flustered, and rubbed his hand over his helm. "Sorry, I've never done this before." 

"It's okay. Here," Nautica said and poured him a cup of engex. "Let's have a drink and relax like planned."

Sure, the way he put his arm around her shoulders when she settled back against was probably the least smoothest move in the history of really un-smooth moves, but once she snuggled in against his side he relaxed further. "This is nice," Nautica said, after quiet a moment, letting her head rest against his shoulder. 

"Yeah," Brainstorm said happily. "It really is."

**Author's Note:**

> Now with [ABSOLUTELY PERFECT ART OF THE LAST SCENE](http://dataglitch.tumblr.com/post/90279089925/fic-tempo-mtmte-brainstom-nautica-ao3) by Dataglitch over on Tumblr. ♥♥♥


End file.
